The “Be Like Jesus” Dream—An Excerpt from our Upcoming Book
In this dream, people in our culture felt they had run out of options for finding any sense of purpose and meaning … any sense of peace and joy.
I found myself in the middle of the beginning of a contagious move of God happening all around me. Believers were filled with the Spirit to simply and boldly proclaim, “Be like Jesus.” It became a catchphrase and started to make sense to people as a real possibility. A grass-roots people movement commenced.
A deep place in people’s hearts and minds was suddenly activating to help them awaken to a more relational way of being, and they were transforming in an accelerated, yet authentic, way. It was caught, person to person, more than taught. It was God’s Spirit who was evoking these new connections.
The new life in Jesus Christ was being embodied. There was a joyful and reasonable abandonment to the person and ways of Jesus.
I said to people all around me, “Don’t you see, this is why your sins have been forgiven, so that you can be like Jesus. We can be like Peter, Paul, and the early Christians.”
People were forgiving from their hearts those who had sinned against them. They were embracing chastity because it suddenly made so much sense to them now. They were gladly letting go of counterfeit joys. They were not being anxious about the future. They embodied a living and breathing practical trust in God that came from the core of their beings. They were trashing greed and being generous instead. They were coming clean and telling the truth to others. They cared about the less fortunate, forgotten, and marginalized people all around them. They were seeing the wisdom of humility and the destructive nature of narcissism. They were no longer living out of their fears. Sins were losing their appeal and becoming distasteful.
People were forming new bands of joy-filled believers and creating healthy communities to sustain the trend in the atmosphere to “be like Jesus”.
People were quickly casting off all the weights and sins in order to run into their assignments from God and into all the world as ambassadors of the good news of Jesus.
In one scene, the Romans 14:17 and 2 Tim 1:7 virtues of life in the Spirit were set parallel to each other. Righteousness, peace, joy, power, love, and a sound mind were coming together and blending. The fruit of the Spirit was being realized.
Another passage was “running in the background” throughout the whole dream—”By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
The Holy Spirit was making “Be Like Jesus” appealing and practical. He wasn’t bypassing the needed processes, but He was anointing them and making them simple. Transformation was in the air. Transformation was accelerating and deepening by the abundant grace of God. (Acts 4:33)
Thousands of people were catching the message. The time had come!